


Oh, Bugger

by HapaxLegomenon



Series: The Adventures of Sousuke and The Beetle [6]
Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, Beetle sex, Bugs & Insects, Challenge: Sports Anime Shipping Olympics | SASO 2017, He's also sexy, Other, Pets, Pyunsuke is not only adorable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 13:16:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11990571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HapaxLegomenon/pseuds/HapaxLegomenon
Summary: Pyunsuke demands to go free.  Sousuke releases him, reluctantly.SASO 2017 cross-post.





	Oh, Bugger

**Author's Note:**

> SASO just isn't SASO until I write ridiculous SouPyun.

During Sousuke’s first spring after high school -- his first spring with Pyunsuke -- the beetle starts acting strange. Or, stranger than normal. Sousuke’s Googled stag beetle behaviours, of course, and he’s pretty sure that Pyunsuke is some kind of outlier. They’re not known to be affectionate pets, but Sousuke would defy anyone seeing his beetle zip across the room just to perch against the curve of Sousuke’s neck and interpreting it as anything but affectionate.  
  
But anyway. In mid-May, Pyunsuke starts to seem almost  _distracted_. He still wriggles excitedly when Sousuke goes to let him out in the morning, and will spend the daylight hours firmly and happily ensconced in some fold of Sousuke’s clothing. But as soon as the light starts to fade and the day starts to cool, Pyunsuke flits down to the windowsill, and commences a tireless march. Back and forth, and back and forth, sometimes diverting to crawl up and down and all over the window screen, but always returning to his pacing on the sill.  
  
It’s amusing, the first day, but by the third one Sousuke is baffled and a little concerned. He goes to try to scoop Pyunsuke in his hand, to get him away from the window, but Pyunsuke snaps his mandibles into Sousuke’s fingers and he jerks back with a curse.  
  
“What’s  _with_  you?” he mutters. Pyunsuke, predictably, doesn’t answer, except to pause and stretch his antlers wide open, body reared back for a moment, before he continues his march.  
  
It gets to the point where Sousuke is considering calling Momotarou to ask about it, but he holds off for two reasons. First, he likes to think that, after almost a year of beetle ownership and many hours of research, he must know as much as Momo does, at this point. Momo’s a good kid, but he’s not the smartest boy Sousuke’s ever met. His usefulness as a resource is pretty fallible, and Sousuke’s pride is a strong force. Second -- Momo is a lot to handle. Sometimes Sousuke just doesn’t have the energy to deal with all of Momo’s energy.   
  
Still, Pyunsuke paces, night after night, and he starts refusing his gel food and, sometimes, even his apples. He just paces and stares out the window and flexes his mandibles.   
  
With a lot of wild animals, Sousuke knows, they can make decent, tamed pets when they’re young, but turn on their keepers when they get older. He wonders if that’s the case here, and as much as it breaks his heart (though he’d never admit that), for the first time in a year… he thinks again about setting Pyunsuke free.  
  
“Will that make you happy?” he murmurs one afternoon, stroking along Pyunsuke’s obsidian carapace with a fingertip. Pyunsuke waves his antennae, and Sousuke sighs.  
  
“Come on, then.”  
  
They go outside, Pyunsuke riding on Sousuke’s shoulder, and he vibrates excitedly when the door opens. Sousuke’s taken Pyunsuke outside before, of course, is in the habit of bringing Pyunsuke on short errands or taking him for walks, and usually the beetle is content to hook his feet into Sousuke’s collar or sleeve or hair and sit back and enjoy the ride.  
  
This time, however, they’re barely two steps outside, and Sousuke is saying, “Well, if you want to --”  
  
And Pyunsuke flies away.  
  
Sousuke watches him go, and then he turns, and he goes back inside, and he does not cry over his beetle.  
  
This was the right thing, he thinks. This is what he should have done a year ago. He should never have let that stupid beetle into his home and he certainly should not have let the stupid beetle into his heart. He didn’t know rejection from an insect could hurt so much, and so he does what he always does when he’s upset, and he goes for a run.  
  
The evening is just starting to cool, and the slight breeze smells like flowers and feels refreshing on his sweaty skin. He hates it. There are flowers blooming, and the grass is lush and green, and the sunset casts a brilliant red-orange highlight to everything it touches. Sousuke grits his teeth against the happy, colourful world and runs harder.  
  
Finally, legs shaking and body dripping in sweat, he has to stop before he falls over, and before he feels any better. His haphazard run has taken him to a tiny old park, lit by a single streetlight now that night has fallen properly, and he stumbles his way to a swingset. When he sits, the swing is low enough that his legs fold up almost to his chest, but he pushes himself slowly back and forth and tries his second strategy.  
  
“ _Hello?_ ” Rin’s voice across his cell phone is as welcome as ever, maybe even more so now with the ocean between them again. Sousuke exhales through his nose and clenches his free hand into a fist at his knee.  
  
“Rin,” he says, and stops.  
  
“ _You okay? You sound out of breath. What’s going on?_ ”  
  
“I...” It’s so stupid. This is stupid. Sousuke is stupid. He’s sad about his beetle and that’s  _stupid_.  
  
“ _You don’t have to talk about it,_ ” Rin says, and Sousuke is so grateful for his understanding best friend. He nods, despite knowing that Rin can’t see him, but Rin seems to get the message anyway, and he starts chatting away about how his day has been so far. “ _So, get this, you’ll never believe what Trent said during practice this morning…_ ”  
  
Sousuke sits in the swing until his legs cramp up and Rin’s voice gets hoarse, and then he starts the long walk home. It takes an unreasonably long time -- Sousuke’s legs are long, and his cardio stamina is great. But he finally makes it to the forest behind his house, and as he cuts across the garden, he hears a loud rustling in the grass, beside a recently-mulched flower bed, and he crouches with the flashlight app on his phone to take a look. Because maybe...  
  
“Oh.”  
  
His immediate reaction is to flush and back away. While he certainly had been hoping to find Pyunsuke there, he hadn’t quite expected the beetle’s… activities. Sousuke’s spent a lot of time researching stag beetles. He knows what a female looks like.  
  
Well. At least now he knows what Pyunsuke has been so preoccupied about for the past several days. He leaves the happy couple to their nocturnal activities, and heads inside to take a shower and go to bed. After a moment of thought, he opens his window and leaves the lid to Pyunsuke’s enclosure open. Just in case.  
  
Sure enough, he wakes the next morning to the sound of quiet buzzing, and a very satisfied-looking beetle burrowed in the damp wood chips of the terrarium.  
  
“Didn’t know you were such a casanova,” Sousuke says. Pyunsuke fans his wings smugly and allows Sousuke to feed him a piece of cherry.

**Author's Note:**

> Yep.
> 
> ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/paxlegomenon))


End file.
